Lamb Of God bassist John Campbell has revealed his “heart dropped” when he was told that frontman Randy Blythe had used clean vocals on last year’s The Duke EP.
But he thinks more of the same will follow on future recordings – and he hopes the band’s fans will learn to love it like he did.
The Duke was released as a tribute to late fan Wayne Ford, who’d connected with Blythe during a cancer battle he later lost. The vocalist said at the time: “We only knew each other a short time. While I was in the studio I found out he passed away and so that’s when I wrote the song for him.”
Campbell tells the Salt Lake Tribune (via Blabbermouth): “They played it back for me and said, ‘Hey, just wanna tell you something – Randy’s singing on this.’ And my heart dropped.
“I’ve heard him singing on the bus, just goofing off, and it’s not good! But obviously that’s just him joking around.
“My heart sank, I was a little nervous, and then the track came on and I was completely blown away. He completely nailed it and effectively used that in his palette for doing vocals.”
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He accepts that some followers have yet to embrace Blythe’s change of delivery, but says: “We’re always trying to evolve and come up with new ways to present heavy music. We don’t want to go out there and play the same songs every night, or have every song be exactly the same.
“It’s nice to have some different emotions – some different dynamics to the set.”
Asked if more clean vocals are likely to appear on future Lamb Of God recordings, Campbell replies: “There’s no telling, but I would imagine yes, probably.”
The first time Blythe used the technique was on the track Overlord from 2015 album VII: Sturm Und Drang. The band just completed a North American tour with Slayer and Behemoth, and they’re planning to take some time out before starting work on writing their next album.
